


And So It Goes

by thismagichour



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Hopeful Ending, Multi, Multiple Realities, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-10 17:06:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15296118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thismagichour/pseuds/thismagichour
Summary: The night Caleb dreams of the beacon, it shows him multiple versions of himself. He follows the threads. All realities are temporary, including this one.





	And So It Goes

**Author's Note:**

> Whew! How y'all doing because I am dead inside!!!!
> 
> This is technically canon compliant through ep 26 (the episode that will forever live in infamy), so don't spoil yourself if you haven't seen it yet! However, the impact from 26, while definitely important to this story, is not the focus of it. Time gets a little weird in this fic. Everything gets a little weird.

It goes like this:

He is a slightly less remarkable child. He loves magic just as much, he studies just as hard, his parents and his town are just as proud, but he is just not as remarkable. The Soltryce accepts Eodwulf and Astrid, and leaves him behind. He is deeply unhappy for a while, and then slightly less. He never leaves the Zemni Fields, he settles down with his own little bookshop, and he dies feeling slightly unfulfilled, without ever knowing why.

It goes like this:

He never breaks. He is a patriot down to his toes. He kills his parents and does not look back. He kills Eodwulf and Astrid too, when it is asked of him. He becomes a great Archmage, one that burns the Kryn dynasty to the ground. There is so much blood on his hands. He is loved and feared in the Empire, the great conquering hero. He dies from an arrow directly in the neck in the revolution. His corpse is left where it lays, and he is only remembered when someone spits on the name of the demolished Dwendalian Empire.

It goes like this:  
  
Trent Ikithon dies by the hand of a drow assassin before he ever sets eyes on a boy named Caleb Widogast. Caleb goes to the Soltryce Academy and excels at all things magic, but especially destruction. He is the best in the Academy and he knows it. He is not popular, but he is strong, and that is what matters. He does his time in the army. He sees the horror of war, and returns to the Soltryce even rougher around the edges than before. In time, he chooses three young mages with the most potential to study with him alone. He is strict with them, he is cruel, but it is for the good of the Empire. When he plants the false memories in their heads, when he asks of them to remove their traitor families, he knows that this is the best path. When one of his students breaks under the challenge entirely, he leaves her in an asylum to rot. He dies by her hands twenty years later. Time is funny that way.

 

“Caleb, are you alright?” Nott says. Caleb blinks and pulls himself away from the beacon. He slowly comes back to where he is, sitting crosslegged on his bed, beacon clutched in both hands. Nott is standing in the doorway, her expression tense and worried.

“I am fine. I am just doing a little more research,” he says, lifting the object in question.

“Learned anything new?” Nott says.

“Quite a lot,” Caleb says, smiling slightly. “Did you need something?”

“I just wanted to let you know that we’ve ordered dinner. I ordered you something, I hope that’s alright.”

“That is wonderful, Nott, thank you,” Caleb says, looking reluctantly down at the Beacon, glowing and pulsing slightly in his hands, “would you be so kind as to come and get me when it arrives? I still have a little work to do.”

“Of course, Caleb,” Nott says, “will you tell me what you found out at dinner?”

“Ah, maybe after dinner, when we are alone,” Caleb says, “the others would probably not be very interested.”

 

It goes like this:

When he sees a goblin in that jail cell, he feels something in him snap into place again. His training is bone deep, and what he does, what he is _supposed_ to do, is kill monsters. He does not even need to think, does not even feel the twist of disgust in his stomach as the fire comes from his fingers instinctually. The goblin does not die easily; he is covered in bite and claw marks when she finally goes limp. He cannot bring himself to look at the creature as it burns. The guards do not come to his aid when he calls. He waits until the corpse catches enough to start the wood burning, and he walks out as if nothing happened. He is killed by gnolls a day before a group meets in a tavern in Allfield.

It goes like this:

Nott and he split up right after they escape from the jail. She has places to be, someone to find, and he has no inclination to make himself a bigger target by traveling with a goblin. He makes it to Allfield weeks too late to meet the group that would never become the Mighty Nein. He starves, painfully slowly, trying every trick he has to keep himself alive, but in the end, he is not resourceful enough by himself. He dies a few short months later, cold, alone, and hungry.

It goes like this: 

He finds out what exactly Nott wants from him. She is under the impression that because he can change copper to silver that he will be able to make her different too. He does not tell her otherwise. He lets her travel with him, lets her care, hating himself the whole time for concealing the truth - that even if one day he were powerful enough to do such a thing, he is too selfish to waste the power on anything less than breaking the world. He dies, in spite of Nott’s best efforts, before ever coming close to either of their goals, and they both die unhappy. 

 

“Are you alright, Caleb?” He’s shaken free again by Nott, who is peering up into his tearstained face, her claws just barely pricking his arm. He takes a moment to breathe, to wipe his face dry, and then he smiles down at her. Nott squints at him, her big eyes narrowing in suspicion. She has gained another one of Jester’s rings, he notices.

“Ja, of course,” Caleb says, voice thick. “Is dinner ready?”

“Yes. Are you coming down?”

“There is no place I’d rather be,” he says, brushing the hair out of her eyes. She smiles shyly at him, takes his hand, and leads him downstairs.

 

It goes like this:

He cannot kill his parents. He knows they are traitors to the Empire; he _hates_ them, he wishes they were dead, but for all the people that have already died at his hands, he cannot summon a flame. He tries. Gods, does he try. The fire, for the first time in his life, does not come. He looks, stricken, towards Master Ikithon, expecting a blow, but that does not come either. In fact, Master Ikithon does not even look at him. Instead, he is looking at Astrid. Eodwulf clenches his jaw and looks to his feet. Caleb looks between all three of them, not understanding. They seem to have grown an entire language without him. Astrid, smiling sadly, holds her arms out to Caleb, and Caleb does not hesitate before he walks into them, as he has done with her hundreds of times in the year they have trained together. He can feel her tears falling down his collar as Eodwulf’s blade pierces his heart.

 

“You’ve been looking at that thing an awful lot lately,” Beau says, as Caleb rubs his eyes of the tears of another reality.

“It is very interesting,” Caleb says, sniffling lightly. Beau shuffles awkwardly into his space, pats him once on the back, much too hard.

“I dunno what you see in that thing,” Beau says, “but it seems like you’re torturing yourself - typical by the way - and you probably-”

“I understand, Beauregard,” Caleb cuts her off. He begins to stand, setting the beacon off to one side.

“-you probably should give it a rest,” Beau continues on like she has not even heard him. “You’re being even more of a dick than you usually are, and it’s probably because of this thing.”

“Beauregard,” Caleb says tiredly, not even sure where the sentence is going. He knows she’s right. It is exhausting, the possibilities. There is no way to explain how it feels, living through so many lifetimes, so many deaths, but he cannot bring himself to stop. He needs to know if the path he is on is the right one. If he can do what must be done. What happens if he cannot. He knows there must be some way to specify what exactly he is looking for, but right now it is mostly trial and error. He says none of this. He knows exactly how the lecture would sound out of Beau’s mouth.

“Caleb,” Beau says.

“I do not want to fight,” Caleb says. He puts his fingers to his temples and shuts his eyes as he says it. There is much to think about, and he cannot bring his overloaded brain to focus.

“Then stop being a dumbass,” Beau returns. “You’re making everyone worried about you.”

“Are you worried about me?” Caleb says, his eyes opening slowly to gaze at her. She returns his gaze for a moment, and then scoffs.

“No,” she says, turning her back on him, “Jester’s been talking. Figured I’d do her a favor.” 

“Beauregard,” Caleb calls softly, to her retreating back, “you are a shit liar.” He does not need to look at her to know she is flipping him off as she walks away.

 

It goes like this:

When Beau asks him for his story, he deflects. He says that he is afraid of fire because as a child, he was tortured with it. That, at least, is true. She presses him a bit, but he is not lying, and therefore has fulfilled the condition of his bargain. He keeps himself even more shielded from her than the rest of the group, now that he knows she is not above manipulation to get what she wants. Nott never presses for his story, and he never tells. When Trent Ikithon crosses their path again and incinerates Caleb where he stands, the group merely watches in shocked horror.

It goes like this:

He and Beau fight. They fight, and they fight, and they do not stop. Every time he comes off a little more unsure, a little more distant, and he cannot change it, does not know how. The group sides against him, every time they side against him, save for Nott. Beau and he are oil and water, and no matter how they both try, they will never mix. He learns to stay silent, to bite his tongue, to never make a move that is not made by the rest of the group first. It is fine. He is a bag of broken glass. He would not want any of them to cut themselves on him. He even dies silently, throat cut in an ambush, first to fall that night but not the last.

It goes like this:

After she is nearly killed in a battle with a troll, and again against several merrow, Beau comes to sit with him alone, sullen and shaking. He sits with her silently as she forces her story out between gritted teeth. They are so different, he and Beauregard, but he understands, at last. He does not offer her words of comfort, and she does not ask for them. There is a reason they confided in one another, and it is because both of them cannot stand the look in another’s eyes when they hear it all. Caleb has never been good at making eye contact anyway. When he jumps in front of her prone body in a fight months down the line, he smiles at the sound of her thoroughly cursing him out as a dagger stops his heart.

 

“Hey man, what did I say about that thing?” Beau says, the next time she catches him at it.

“It has knowledge that I need. That could help all of us,” Caleb says, unrepentant.

“That’s weirdly cryptic and unhelpful,” Beau says, arms crossed, unimpressed.

“It shows different timelines,” Caleb says, “how things could have gone… differently. It is… informative.”

“Oh yeah? See anything about me?”

“It only shows me my own fate,” Caleb says, lips quirking slightly to cover the lie, “but if you want to look for yourself, you may. Just know that most timelines are worse than this one.”

“Worse?” Beau repeats skeptically. Caleb holds the beacon out towards her. She reaches for it hesitantly, than crosses her arms again. “I’m good. Just take a break every now and then, yeah?”

“Ja, of course,” Caleb says, waiting until she leaves to return his gaze.

 

It goes like this:

When he breaks, his magic goes with his mind. Even when he comes back to himself, years later, the magic does not return. He can feel where it used to be like the ache of a phantom limb, and he still catches his hands making the old movements, unconsciously, but there is never the slightest spark. It is such a numbing pain. He often clutches the pendant around his neck, all too aware that it is the last bit of magic he has to his name. He tries to strike out into the woods, terrified of his own shadow, but without his fire it is nearly impossible. He forces himself into civilization, lying, cheating, stealing what he can to get by. He is caught, of course, he always has relied too heavily on magic and it catches up to him. When he is executed by the Empire, he catches his traitor fingers still trying to spark.

 

“You seen some future yet where I’ve struck it big?” Fjord says to him one night when they share a watch.

“You have been talking to Beauregard,” Caleb says, idly transcribing a spell over into his book. It probably will not have much utility for him in the future, but he has the ink to spare for once, so he may as well have it in case.

“She may have mentioned,” Fjord confirms, sticking a blade of grass in between his teeth. The road has been quiet for several nights now, and there is an air of relaxed calm in the group, the feeling that they have it easy for a while. As they speak, Fjord is leaning back against a tree, the fire warming his feet. Caleb, always a bit too thin, is closer to the fire, hunching over his books. It is in Fjord’s favor that Caleb does not mind having his back and neck exposed to him, but Caleb thinks maybe Fjord does not realize that.

“As I told her, I only see my own threads,” Caleb says, still not looking up from his work, “and I only very rarely see the future. And none of those are possible futures for us, I believe.”

“You seen a future where _you_ struck it big?” Fjord says, after a pause. Caleb can tell without looking at him that he is grinning.

“Yes,” Caleb replies.

“Hot damn,” Fjord says, “tell me about it.”

“I became a very famous mage in the name of the Empire and I was killed very painfully in the revolution,” Caleb says flatly, clutching his quill so tightly that he is afraid for a moment that it will snap.

“That’s dark stuff,” Fjord says, seriously. “But there _is_ a revolution coming?”

“It is impossible to know, that timeline is very clearly not this one,” Caleb says. His whole body feels stiff and cold. He can remember the arrow piercing the muscle in his throat very clearly.

“Sure-”

“If you are so interested in it then try it for yourself,” Caleb says, desperately wanting this conversation to be over, “it is in my bag right next to you.”

“Can anyone do it?” Fjord says. “It doesn’t require some spellcasting mumbo jumbo?”

“You have plenty of spellcasting mumbo jumbo, so please do not downplay your abilities to me when there is no one else around,” Caleb says, forcing himself to return to his transcribing, “and no, anyone is capable of it.” Fjord apparently has no response to that. It is not until Caleb finishes his spell that he realizes that Fjord has been quiet for quite some time. He turns, and Fjord’s hands are clutching the Beacon desperately, his eyes gone blank. It is an unsettling expression to see on someone else’s face. 

“Fjord,” Caleb says softly, and Fjord’s eyes snap back. He inhales sharply, as if he has just emerged from underwater.

“That’s…” Fjord says, hoarsely, clears his throat, tries again, “that’s real fucking unsettling.”

“What did you see?” Caleb says, turning entirely to look at him.

“I drowned,” Fjord says.

“That will happen,” Caleb says, nodding. He glances back over his shoulder to the fire, and attempts to suppress a shudder, to very little success, by the way Fjord’s eyes watch him.

“Wanna trade?” Fjord says, one half of his mouth pulling up, “I could use a little fire to warm up after that.” Caleb gestures to the space next to him, closer to the fire. Fjord looks at him for a moment, expression unreadable, and joins him.

“You want another go?” Fjord says, holding out the beacon when he takes his place next to Caleb, a careful distance so they do not touch. Caleb smiles, a very little.

“I thought Beau and Jester were worried,” Caleb says, taking the beacon into his lap.

“Well, I guess it’ll be our little secret,” Fjord says, unconcerned.

 

It goes like this: 

When Fjord threatens him over the scroll, Caleb calls his bluff. Caleb dives for the scroll anyway, and Fjord makes a move to stop him, but Caleb knows perfectly well that Fjord would not actually hurt him over something so trivial. Let them all chide him later, but the scroll is more important. Nott, however, does not know this. When Fjord makes a move towards Caleb, Nott puts a bolt through his eye. When Caleb freezes in shock, Nott drags him stumbling behind her. When Ulog detonates, Fjord is not there to help drag Caleb out, nor is Jester, since she is running back to check why Fjord was left behind. When a loud wail from Jester reaches Nott’s ears, Caleb is already gone. 

It goes like this:

Fjord says to him, “You told me once that you were a fan of calculated risk,” and Caleb responds, “I have heard that sometimes you just have to be stupid,” and kisses him. They spend a few happy months being teased by their companions, until the truth comes out about what Fjord is. That he sold his soul in a pact with a monster for power. Caleb sold his soul to a monster once. He knows what kind of person it makes you. Caleb breaks off his relationship with Fjord coldly, and they both die not long after, along with the rest of their companions, to a creature much stronger than any of them.

It goes like this:

When Fjord finally sets his heart on going to the Soltryce, Caleb cannot let him go. He splays himself open, for the entire group this time, to tell them about his time at the Academy and Master Trent Ikithon. Jester cries. He spends the whole time with his eyes focused at the ground, because if he makes eye contact with any of them, he will shatter. Fjord grimly comforts him, and Jester and Yasha swear an oath against Trent Ikithon, and the rest of the Cerberus. When they run across Ikithon again, Nott cannot keep her tongue, and the entire party falls at the hand of a power much stronger than them. As Caleb burns, he is all too aware that it is his fault.

 

“Our watch is almost up,” Fjord says. Caleb blinks. The fire has burned down a little, and Fjord is lounging against the tree again. Fjord watches him knowingly as Caleb brushes the tears out of his eyes. Caleb shifts uncomfortably under the scrutiny. 

“What did you see this time?” Fjord says.

“Ah, many things,” Caleb says, “all of them bad.”

“All of them?” Fjord says. Caleb hesitates. The sense memory of Fjord’s hips against his, teeth gently tugging at his lips, has not yet faded. He knows it is not real, it is not possible here, but Fjord is looking at him in a way that is unfamiliar, and he wonders. He also cannot help but wonder if Fjord is really under the thumb of some monstrous entity. It is on the tip of his tongue, to ask, because if that is true then they need to know now, they need to get ahead of it. But there is something vulnerable in Fjord’s eyes; Caleb cannot pinpoint quite what it means. The question fizzles on his lips.

“Yes,” he says, at last.

“Bad luck,” Fjord says, inanely.

“And ah, and you. When you looked into it, did you see this group?” Caleb says. There is a long silence where the two of them simply look at each other. Caleb tries to discern what Fjord is thinking, but Fjord’s face is casually blank. Astrid was a master of that look. Caleb shakes himself free of Fjord’s gaze.

“No,” Fjord says, eventually, “no, I didn’t see anything like that.”

 

It goes like this:

He never leaves the asylum. When he cracks, it is too deep to repair. He spends his time reliving that night over and over, trying to change the outcome, but it is beyond him. Other times, he merely exists in a fog, unable to respond to the stimulus around him. When his would-be savior tries to take the clouds away, there is nothing to take. This is just him, down to the marrow. He dies with no one and nothing left to his name, and is buried out back of the hospital in an unmarked grave.

 

“Oh, Caleb, sorry, I didn’t mean to bother you,” Yasha says in a hushed voice, as he comes back to himself, gasping.

“I am rather glad you did, actually,” Caleb says.

“Oh. Well, then. Uh, you’re welcome,” Yasha says. “Fjord and I are going to take first watch? Which watch do you want?”

“Ah,” Caleb says, glancing around. He has only been down for twenty-three minutes, his internal clock tells him.

“We could arrange for you to sleep through,” Yasha says, in that soft way.

“No, ah, I will take whichever watch Nott is taking,” Caleb says, “but I do have some more work to do, unfortunately.”

“Oh, sure, sorry to bother you.” Yasha says again, grimacing.

“It is nice to be interrupted by you,” Caleb says. Yasha stares at him for a moment, then purses her lips and nods, once. She turns to leave. As she takes a few steps away, she pauses, and looks over her shoulder at him.

“Just - be careful, alright?” She says quietly.

“I am always careful,” Caleb says, smiling softly at her. Yasha squints at him incredulously, but says nothing. Caleb is already back to focusing on the beacon before she leaves.

 

It goes like this:

Yasha goes one day, and she does not come back. Molly is not worried, and Fjord is willing to play it off, but it is clear that he and Beau and Jester are convinced that something bad has happened to her. Caleb, for his own part, misses her. It is hard to say when the feeling went from “she does this all the time” to “she is not coming back,” but the group feels it acutely. They are worse without her. Beau and Molly are the only ones who get into the fray, and they suffer the most without Yasha. They both nearly die a lot. Molly, every time he falls, becomes less, somehow. He is less vibrant and more withdrawn. He makes stupid mistakes. Beau becomes more reckless, to the detriment of all of them. Fjord and Caleb try to compensate with strategy, but there is only so much that can be done. Nott tries to convince Caleb to leave a few times, for survival’s sake, and Caleb knows they should, but in the end, neither of them can bring themselves to leave their friends. They all die from a completely preventable circumstance, Nott in his arms as the end comes.

 

Caleb catches himself drifting off, the beacon nearly falling from his hand. He sets it aside carefully, and then gently brushes his hand through Nott’s hair, who has taken residence curled up at his feet. He looks out to see Fjord and Yasha on watch, and he notes that Jester has joined them. Before he pulls back into the tent, he smiles up at the first clear sky they have had in ages.

“Caleb! Caleb!” Nott says, shaking him. He sits up instantly, everything feeling wrong in that way when you know that you overslept. His brain shifts into overdrive. He should have been woken up for watch six hours ago. He grits his teeth against that knowledge, especially when he should have woken without aid. The beacon has been taking its toll on him, in a far greater way than he had fully realized. He hears no sound of turmoil - in its place, an unnatural silence reigns. 

“Wake the others,” Caleb says to Nott. As he speaks, he can feel that his lips have cracked in the cold, and are starting to bleed. The day only gets worse from there. It is a long time before he picks up the beacon again.

 

It goes like this:

He dies to an imp’s poison, fighting a deviltoad, Nott frantically trying to revive him.

It goes like this:

He dies with Ulog, incinerated completely, in a fashion that only he can appreciate the irony of.

It goes like this:

He falls to a thunderwave by a merrow mage, and is mercifully already unconscious when the second hits him, killing him instantly.

 

“Are you picking that thing up again?” Molly says, exasperated. “The only good thing to come out of this disaster is that you gave it up.”

“It may help,” Caleb says, stubbornly. They’re on the road with a dwarf, they have a plan, they need to sleep well tonight. Caleb does not know the next time he will be able to turn to the beacon, and he cannot miss the opportunity. He knows the scene must look strange to Molly, him stripped down to nightclothes, sitting crosslegged on the edge of his bedroll, hair pulled back, clutching the beacon in both hands between his legs.

“And how is it helping?” Molly says. “Name a single thing that it has given you.”

“At the moment? Not much,” Caleb admits. “But there is still a chance. I just need some time. It may give me a close enough reality to this one to give us some answers.”

“Caleb.” Molly says, gently.

“Not now, Mollymauk,” Caleb says, and carefully tunes him out.

 

It goes like this:

“Do you believe in soulmates, Caleb?” Jester says to him one night when they are together on watch. He thinks about this for a moment. He tells her he does not feel that way about her, he is very sorry, he did not mean to give her the wrong impression, and she cuts him off with a disgusted cry. 

“I mean - we knew each other before. All of us. Our souls know each other. Don’t you feel it?” Jester sighs happily, kicking her feet a little. “Do you think friendships can last forever?”

“I do not believe in soulmates, no.” Caleb says, but he is not sure this is true. The affection he feels for them all is a greater feeling than he has ever had for anyone, even his parents, even Astrid and Eodwulf, though he hates to admit it. He thought maybe this was a response to trauma, that he desperately loved these people because he had nothing else in his life, but maybe that is not so. Maybe it is something more. He has read about the Gods of Fate, though religion has never been of much interest to him. He cannot completely rule out the idea. 

“Maybe I am just more attuned to the spirits than you,” Jester says grandly, and begins to draw in her sketch book. Over her shoulder, Caleb can see a drawing of him disappearing into many black feathers.

“Caleb?” Jester says softly, her voice strange, when their watch is almost up, “I told you I would find you.” 

He dies many months later, saving her like he is meant to, and does not regret it for one moment.

It goes like this:

“Do you think that magic meant for evil can be used for good?” Fjord says to him one night when they are together on watch. 

“I think that even magic meant to be good can be used for evil,” Caleb responds without hesitation. He feels the heat rising in his face, to match the flames that are licking up the sides of his consciousness. The fire echoes in his chest. He can feel the palms of his hands blacken and blister as it crackles to the surface. Caleb clenches his fists, and the flame sputters out, leaving a cold hollow feeling in its wake. Fjord is watching him, the way the Fjord is always watching him.

“Sure,” Fjord says, and falls quiet. Caleb does not ask him what he meant by the question, and Fjord doesn’t offer. There is a strong gust of sea air that buffets them both, though they are hundreds of miles for a body of water. Neither of them mention it.

They die, side by side, many months later, without Caleb ever figuring out what Fjord was trying to say. 

It goes like this:

“Do you know much about the Gentleman?” Yasha says to him one night when they are together on watch.

“No more than he wants us to,” Caleb says, carefully.

“Do you think maybe we are doing the wrong thing?” Yasha says, and her face -

 

“Caleb, come on,” Molly says, and Caleb is furious in a way he has not felt years, he has not been pulled out mid-reality before, now he will never know what Yasha was trying to say -

“Caleb,” Molly says, and Molly’s warm hands are on Caleb’s face, and Caleb flinches back, scrambles away, because he will hurt Molly at this distance, and sure enough, there’s the fire rising in his hands, in his heart, he does not want to hurt anyone, and the fire’s spreading and there is decade old screaming in his ears.

“None of that, now,” Molly says, and takes Caleb’s hands. “You’re okay. You’re fine. You’re here with me.” Caleb can feel the flames licking up Molly’s skin and Molly does not even flinch. Molly just continues talking quiet nonsense until the flame blinks out.

“I did not mean to hurt you,” Caleb says, voice catching. “I am sorry, Mollymauk.”

“None of that, either,” Molly says. “I shouldn’t have pulled you out like that, and that is a lesson that I’ve now learned. Very acutely, as it turns out.” He gently releases Caleb’s hands, and turns his palms up to show the reddened skin. A wave of nausea overtakes Caleb, but it passes.

“You should have Jes-” Caleb swallows, redirects, “Beau has a healing potion left, I think.”

“It’s fine. I think you’ll find I’m quite resistant to fire,” Molly says, and grins wide.

“Nonetheless,” Caleb says, “we need those hands to hold swords soon.” He becomes very aware of the closeness of Molly, sitting together in the darkness. Molly had moved into his space to grab his hands. Molly seems to realize this at the same moment, and leans back abruptly.

“I’ll talk to her,” Molly says, “but will you promise me that you’ll take a break from that thing for a while?”

“I am so close,” Caleb croaks. “I saw them, I talked to them, Yasha was about to tell me -“

“It’s not real,” Molly says.

“It is,” Caleb says, quiet but firm.

“Alright, but it isn’t _here_ , which is where we need you right now.” Molly says, standing up to go.

“I am so close,” Caleb repeats, more to himself than to Molly.

 

It goes like this:

Yasha screams to the Stormlord, and he answers. The clear night goes dark abruptly, and an agonized wail from Lorenzo echoes through the cold air while a thunder clap rouses all of them from their slumber. 

It goes like this:

Fjord blinks out of existence, just for a moment, and returns with writhing black tentacles surrounding him. They all wake to a bunch of dead slavers, with purple scorch marks around their necks. Fjord is not the same, after that.

It goes like this:

Jester cries, _Traveler, are you here_ , and he _is_. It only takes him turning the druid inside out in a burst of streamers and confetti before the rest flee. When the rest of the group wake they have to rub glitter from their eyes, but are none the wiser.

**_It goes like this It goes like this It goes like this It goes like this It goes like this_ **

It goes like this:

Caleb gets what he wants. He travels, he grows strong, he scrounges information from every nook he can find. He learns exactly how to bring back his family. But the time he spent with the Mighty Nein has taught him one thing - it is not enough. He must overthrow Trent Ikithon, must destroy every inch of corruption in the Empire. When he stands with reality a mere formality that he can bend with his fingertips, evil defeated, mission accomplished - he is not happy. It changes nothing. This sickness in him runs hot in his veins. He dies, and that’s a relief.

 

“Caleb!” Molly is shaking him. Caleb thought they had agreed to not do that anymore. His nose is running. He goes to rub it, but his hand doesn’t move. Inexorably, his eyes are drawn down, back to the beacon, where his hands remain locked.

 

It goes like this:

Molly falls first of all of them. It was only a matter of time, with the amount of his own blood that he regularly spilled. Caleb feels strangely bereft, and is not quite sure why. They bring him to a temple, to revive him, but Molly’s spirit is not willing. Caleb understands. If the group tried to bring him back to life, he would not want to come back either. They gain another companion, but the group is never the same. Slowly, so slowly, they die. The group keeps adding new members, trying to live up to the name, but Caleb, who has lost so much, feels like he will shatter under the strain of the loss. When Nott is disintegrated, with absolutely no hope of her return, Caleb does not take long to follow her. He stands in the next fight with his hands at his sides, turns wet accusing eyes on Jester when she tries to heal him. Jester cries for him, and that is something. It is more than he expected or deserves.

 

“Molly,” Caleb gasps. He can taste the blood now, running from his nose and down his chin. Molly is clutching at Caleb’s hands, trying to pry them free, but is only succeeding in tearing off his own nails. Caleb tries to look at him, to tell him to stop, he’s hurting himself, but there’s a red haze overtaking his eyes.

 

It goes like this:

After Fjord, Jester and Yasha are taken, they all get knocked around more than ever before. When Caleb falls to an incredibly powerful sorcerer, he thinks that is curtains. When he wakes, Molly’s necklace is around his neck. He never takes it off after that. When Molly kisses him so softly one night after a rough battle, it is not much of a surprise. When he wakes up after one battle to discover his dead friends strewn around him, Molly’s cold hand still clutching his, he walks directly into the next town and declares himself an enemy of the Empire. He is executed with Molly’s name on his lips.

 

“I’m sorry, Caleb, this is going to hurt,” Molly whispers into his ear, closing the clasp of his necklace around Caleb’s neck.

 

It goes like this:

Molly’s past finally catches up with them. All of his old friends are much more powerful than his new ones. As the blood is manipulated in his very veins, Caleb reaches out and presses a single kiss to Molly’s knuckles.

 

“Please,” Caleb says, entirely blinded now from the blood coming from his eyes.

“Don’t fret, I’m gonna fix it,” Molly says, in his ear. 

 

It goes like this:

Caleb’s past finally catches up with them. Eodwulf slits Molly’s throat right in front of him, as Astrid clucks her tongue faux sympathetically. Caleb clutches Molly’s corpse tight, rocking and singing in Zemnian quietly as Trent Ikithon finishes the job.

 

As the blade pierces him, he feels no pain. He thinks there should be pain. He remembers Master Ikithon piercing through his hands, his thighs, his lungs, and pain always came with that. _You must be willing to suffer for your home, Herr Widogast_ , _what good comes of a soldier with no tolerance for pain?_ But now - nothing.

“Mollymauk,” Caleb says, but his tongue feels thick. Molly hushes him, and Caleb can feel the press of lips against his forehead. Caleb wishes he could see him. His sight is completely crimson, like Molly’s eyes. Does Molly see only in shades of red?

“It’s gonna be fine. Just go to sleep for a bit and everything’s gonna be just fine,” Molly says in a gentle tone. 

“Molly…Mollymauk,” Caleb says, just liking the way the consonants roll off his tongue. It is a good name, Mollymauk. A good name for a good face. Molly has a good face. Caleb tries to tell him, to tell Molly that his name fits his good face, but he cannot form the words. Caleb reaches a hand out to where Molly’s voice is coming from, and only when Molly kisses his palm does he realize he’s let go of the beacon. Now the pain comes, and everything is black.

 

It goes like this:

Caleb wakes up covered in blood, and so is Molly. Molly’s face is grim, and one bloody hand clutches an empty ornate healing potion bottle. The beacon lays on the floor at Molly’s feet. As soon as Caleb opens his eyes, Molly kisses him square on the lips, ignoring the blood in Caleb’s mouth entirely.

Molly sneaks Caleb to the baths so that Nott and Beau do not see them both looking like a horror show. Caleb tells Nott the truth, of course, and that ends the whole affair with the beacon. It is shoved into Jester’s haversack (it is still Jester’s haversack even in her absence, they are merely holding onto it for her) without ceremony. Nott, who had been using it occasionally for the mote of possibility, does not even mention it again.

They carry on, as they have to. The four of them must find their other companions, after all, they do not have time to worry about anything else. Yasha finds them first. Fjord and Jester had helped her break out, but they could not escape themselves. Yasha is there to retrieve them and bring them back to where Fjord and Jester are being held. When the whole damn operation lays in pieces and Fjord and Jester are free, the Mighty Nein all look at each other solemnly. As Beau throws herself directly into Yasha’s arms, Molly puts his hand in Caleb’s and smiles genuinely, the first time Caleb has seen him do so in months.

It goes like this:

Caleb wakes up in Shady Creek Run, in some shithole tavern where they are lying low, with only two friends beside him and a hollowness in his chest. He feels the phantom warmth of Molly’s hand in his, and is wracked with the loss all over again. Mollymauk is long cold now. It feels more wrong than ever. They do not even know if the rest of their friends are alive or dead. The idea of losing so much potential at one time seems deeply unfair, even to Caleb, who has lived through so much unfairness. Caleb takes the time before Beau and Nott wake beside him to piece himself back together, to remind himself that this is not the worst timeline, though it certainly feels the coldest. As Nott begins to stir beside him, he finds his hand unconsciously reaching out for the beacon again, to have another reality, to have Molly or Fjord or anyone comfort him. But he thinks of Molly’s face in the reality where Caleb lost control of the beacon’s power, and he pulls his hand back.

It goes like this:

Caleb wakes up in the unused cellar of the Leaky Tap, the beacon sitting in his satchel under his head, and Nott curled up against his thigh. When he shifts, Nott wakes up and looks at him sheepishly.

“I got scared of the skeleton so I came over here,” she says. Caleb smiles at her, more rested than he’s felt in as long as he can think of, and he has such perfect clarity. In this timeline, he will change it. He will save them. He knows better now. In the satchel, the beacon swirls and beckons.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was strange, because it was written completely non linearly and then pieced together right after 25, where I was like "well, this changes.........a lot." But it wasn't until 26 that I found the ending that wasn't garbage. So at least there's that? Also disclaimer - this fic is heavily Widomauk but I'm just as into Widofjord, despite the way this fic turns out. Really, Fjord's absence takes a toll on Caleb's reality. I spent a lot of time thinking about what Fjord saw in the beacon, but you know Fjord, he plays it close to the chest.
> 
> Just a fun fact, I wrote all of the individual character vignettes before anything else, so the "Yasha goes and does not come back" and "Molly falls first of all of them" was written literally the day after I posted "Discover Us Safely Destroyed" TWO MONTHS AGO. Anyway, this fic is Extremely Cursed now. Sorry, y'all.
> 
> catch me @ calebwidogasts on tumblr!


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